Tag: puzzle game

News

Need a break from the world? Chill out on a virtual island

Don’t you ever wish you could escape to a remote island just to get away from it all, even for five or 10 minutes? If so, check out ROM, a “short experimental experience” created by HTW Berlin students Paul Schnepf, Rainer Windolph, and Friedemann Allmenröder. Created as part of the Game Design BA curriculum, ROM allows you to explore a desolate island and take control of its environment. Revive its ancient machines to alter the weather and bring the island back to life. Activating one machine causes snow to cover the land; another brings on a sudden driving rainstorm accompanied by…
SHENZEN I/O
News

Shenzhen I/O, a game that lets you be a fake engineer

Those who’ve devoted their lives to the Cartasian Discipline in Neal Stephenson’s Anathem (2008) are subject to rote memorization when they’ve broken the rules of their society. The book in which they’re to memorize from is filled with illogical nonsense, like nursery rhymes that don’t quite rhyme—a particularly aggravating punishment for a group of people dedicated, simply, to the pursuit of knowledge. “The way they punish them is by making them learn stuff that literally means nothing and is just making their lives harder,” Shenzhen I/O creator Zach Barth said. “I think of [Shenzhen I/O] in that way.” But, like, in a good way. “We’re inventing these…
Review

Beglitched starts the cyberpink revolution

I struggle every Halloween to decide on a costume. I’ve dressed up as all the basics: a black cat, a vampire, a witch—twice. But Beglitched may have saved me the hassle this year. It has introduced to me a whole new concept: a cyberpink computer witch. Now, the title computer witch itself would be cool enough. You could say, “thanks for that idea, Beglitched,” and be done. But the computer witches of Beglitched want you not only to know about them, but to become one of them. As such, they dump you in the middle of their cyberpink witching hour,…
News

Architecture fans will want to watch out for Pavilion next week

Fourth-person puzzle game Pavilion will be released in two parts, the first of which comes to Windows, Mac, and Linux on September 22 through Steam and the Humble Store. The game will debut, however, on the NVIDIA Shield on September 15. Forgot what the fourth-person perspective was? That’s okay, I did, too. In 2014, Visiontrick Media’s Henrick Flink said on the PlayStation blog that it’s used to describe the way the player interacts with the main character; the player isn’t playing as the main character, and is not in control of him, either. “Indirect control” is used to influence, guide,…
News

A new game asks: What is machine intelligence?

In March, Microsoft introduced Tay—a chat bot that was programmed to imitate the voice of a teen girl—to the world. The idea in creating her was to demonstrate machine learning through human influence, and in some ways, Microsoft succeeded. Tay had all the makings of A Real Teenager; she used lots of emojis, said things like swag and internets, and talked about puppies (maybe that last one was just me?). Much of her learning was through repetition—she picked up on phrases that lots of folks tweeted at her. And that’s where Microsoft went wrong. In less than 24 hours, Tay…